Employment contracts involving migrant workers in the Middle East are based on the ancient Bedouin kafala system.
What was once essentially a code of hospitality — that encouraged families to host travelling strangers and treat them as one of their own — has evolved into the sponsorship of migrant workers, which gives employers enormous control over their employees.
Common practices include the withholding of wages, the confiscation of passports and long working hours in substandard or unsafe conditions.
Domestic workers, who are obliged to live in their employer’s home, are particularly vulnerable to physical abuse, sexual violence and various forms of mental cruelty, while the almost total lack of labour laws for migrants provides little scope for redress.
Thousands of Kenyans work in the Middle East countries, mostly as domestic workers. However, they have to contend with mistreatment including physical abuse and in some instances sexual violence.
Their plight was recently highlighted by a CNN documentary on the exploitation and physical abuse of domestic workers in Lebanon.
Employment contracts involving migrant workers in the Middle East are based on the ancient Bedouin kafala system.
What was once essentially a code of hospitality — that encouraged families to host travelling strangers and treat them as one of their own — has evolved into the sponsorship of migrant workers, which gives employers enormous control over their employees.
Common practices include the withholding of wages, the confiscation of passports and long working hours in substandard or unsafe conditions.
Domestic workers, who are obliged to live in their employer’s home, are particularly vulnerable to physical abuse, sexual violence and various forms of mental cruelty, while the almost total lack of labour laws for migrants provides little scope for redress.
The CNN report highlighted how most of the Kenyan workers have been dismissed from their jobs without remuneration, sending them to live hopelessly in the streets.
To add insult to injury, the report painted a picture of a Kenyan consulate in Beirut that grossly neglects its country's largely female workers, regularly overcharging them for essential consular fees and acting with impunity as they physically and verbally punish those who try to call out their abuses of power.
Those seeking visas to return home are also physically and racially abused and allegedly told to engage in sex work to raise the visa fees.
The Kenyan embassy in Kuwait, which oversees Beirut, is similarly of no help and often, according to reports, covers up for the Lebanese nationals who run the consulate.
The situation has been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent deadly explosion at the Beirut port.
Covid-19 and the Beirut blast a have worsened the devastating economic crisis that struck Lebanon last October.
Millions of Lebanese have been rendered jobless, with most now living in the streets. The government has also declared a state of emergency.
The government Prime Minister Saad Hariri has resigned, citing public outrage over the catastrophic explosion that killed at least 160 people, wounded thousands and left many homeless and destroyed a portion of the city.
For thousands of foreigners, including Kenyans, who have found themselves living in the streets, the situation is even more dire.
Following the explosion, Kenyans working in Beirut have renewed demands to be brought home and have been holding demonstrations outside the consulate building.
Kenyan embassy officials in Kuwait say they cannot verify the employment and immigration status of the protesters.
But the immigrants say they are not in a position to raise Sh40,000 visa fees.
While the mission has also promised to charter flights to bring the stranded Kenyans home, the manner in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has handled the crisis is a blot to the government's policy to protect exported labour.
There are over 1,000 Kenyans working in Beirut as domestic workers, according to official statistics.
Several countries, including Iran, Philippines, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, and Morocco have already announced evacuation flights for their citizens stuck in Beirut.
Diplomatic missions are established to essentially serve the a country's national interests, including the welfare and safety its nationals in the host country.
Most Kenyans go to work in Lebanon and other Middle East countries because of the promise of better pay.
The remittances back to Kenya sustain many families. With an unemployment rate of around 40 per cent and a rapidly-growing population, more and more young Kenyans are willing to go anywhere and do anything to earn a living — even if that means putting their lives at risk in countries such as Lebanon.
The Kenyan government has in the past launched a crackdown on rogue employment agencies in an attempt to curb the exploitation and abuse of its migrant workers in Gulf countries. The efforts have, however, been frustrated by graft, desperation and greedy agents.
Television footage of Kenyan citizens abandoned in the streets in Lebanon suggests that the migrant workers’ problem is far from being solved.
